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Entitlements are unfairly targeted at a select few

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Saturday January 4, 2014 4:46 AM

Monday’s front-page headline “Entitlements gobbling up federal government’s revenue” is
upsetting, as so many are gaming the system.

To me, an entitlement is the right to do, receive or have something generally from the
government with very few strings attached, if any. I agree it is not fair to our future
generations.

The truly needy should continue to be assisted both governmentally and through charities. The
requirements need to be set to eliminate a culture of taking and dependence and figuring ways to
get even more.

The entitlements need to be tied to work requirements for able-bodied people. Those requirements
shouldn’t penalize those who try to better their lot by working, but should provide benefits on a
sliding scale with time limits.

These entitlements must be curtailed. It is wrong for only select individuals to receive monies
or programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8 housing assistance, weatherization and
home-energy assistance for homeowners, Pell grants for education, school breakfast for children
from low-income families, the Job Corps training program for at-risk teens and young adults and
Head Start for pre-kindergartners. There are too many to note.

As a retiree, I do take offense to Social Security and Medicare being lumped into this grouping.
The original Social Security needs to be separated from some of the later programs that provided
benefits for those other than retirees.

From 1962 to 1990, the contribution percentage to Social Security doubled, along with the base
salary being taxed. We saw over those years that, to make the program work, adjustments needed to
be made.

The complaining now is that the fund is not keeping up. While the taxable base has gone up, the
rate appears not to have gone up in 23 years. If everything else we spend money on has gone up in
those 23 years, it makes sense that the fund is not keeping pace.

This also applies to Medicare, which was set up in the 1960s. Making the problem worse is that
the accounts have not earned even a money-market rate of interest to grow them.

In fact, the funds have been raided over the years to support other government programs,
including the growth in numbers and size of giveaway entitlements.

Not only have we paid into the Social Security system, some of us now are taxed heavily when we
draw on these accounts, amounting to taxing money that was deducted from our pay.

We will get less because of a new, convoluted way of figuring inflation for cost-of-living
increases.

We all need to pay forward to make the program work. As for the other entitlement I noted above,
we need to institute more controls. We all know the old story about a free lunch.